Reach And Flexibility
by KroganVanguard
Summary: Garrus and Miranda find some common ground on the Normandy, blow off some steam during ME2. Some rarepair fluff, inspired by a KMeme prompt. Please review.


_Just wanted to write some rarepair fluff. Also trying to get a handle on both Garrus and Miranda. I know this goes against two of the most popular OTPs, but please leave me a review anyway. _**  
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Garrus paused momentarily at the stairs that led from the battery down to the mess, surprised to see another person there during off-shift. She sat there with her back to him, intent on the pad in front of her, glossy black hair tied neatly into a ponytail, her usual Cerberus skintight catsuit discarded for a more informal look of a sweatshirt and pants. Apparently she was quite attractive by human standards, and he had certainly noticed how supportive her waist seemed. When they were out on missions together with Shepard, his eyes might have occasionally strayed to her hips as they swayed, and lower still.

"Garrus. Finished calibrating?" She looked over her shoulder at him, pale blue eyes lit with a flicker of amusement as if she could read his mind. In the dimmed lights of the off-shift, they appeared brighter than normal, like the Palaven sky in the morning.

"As good as they'll be for now. I can't sleep. What about you?" He walked around to sit across from her, mandibles quirking with curiosity. He respected the human, despite the fact that she worked for Cerberus. When Shepard had found him under siege on Omega, and asked her to watch his back as he and Mordin cleared out the lower tunnels, she had stepped up alongside him without a word, killing mercenaries almost as efficiently as he had. Despite the ridiculous outfit she wore, she was beyond effective on the field, and Shepard often took them together on the away team. He had come to trust her to have his back on the field, and he rather she extended him the same trust in return.

"Me either. I don't need much anyway. Genes." She waved a lazy hand at her own body. "Thanks for helping out with my sister on Ilium."

"Shepard chose to help you out." He deflected her words and then grinned, catching her blue orbs with his own. "You should've found me when you were putting him back together. Shepard without Vakarian...doesn't bear thinking about." He gave her an exaggerated mournful look as he shook his head.

"I…yes." She looked at him and then away. "Serving with Shepard gives you a different perspective, doesn't it? Initially I argued for an all-human team. Not my finest hour, in hindsight." Her voice was soft, tinged with regret, but honest. Garrus appreciated that directness. It was a very turian quality, of all things. He wondered if he said that, whether she would take it as a compliment or an insult.

"You're better than Cerberus, Miranda. I can see why you might have joined them but the The Illusive Man will eventually tread down the path to hell. With completely understandable reasons, but nonetheless, he doesn't have what Shepard has. That core of principle. Of spirit." He held her gaze and let her see how firmly he believed in his words.

"I'll…think about it." He knew he had made some sort of impression. Her expression had softened. She was going through the same process of self-doubt that he had gone through what felt a lifetime ago, on another ship called the _Normandy_. When Shepard had showed him that mercy was not necessarily a weakness, that good people were not soft, that doing the right thing did not have to mean compromising your principles.

"Anyway, enough serious talk. How is Oriana?" He stood as he spoke, wandering over the kitchen to search for any dextro food or drink Gardener might have left lying around. "You want anything while I'm up?" He found a can of dextro-cola, and a handful or pesa-nuts. Shepard must've bought those. He knew how Garrus liked to snack on them.

"No thanks. Ori's fine. We're swapping emails. There's a boy in her history class she likes. I'm thinking of hacking into the school computers to see what I can find out about him." Garrus smiled as he sat back down across from her, taking a swig of his drink a popping a couple of nuts in his mouth. Yes, she definitely was an older sibling.

"I remember when I met Solana's first boyfriend. I was on leave from my first posting, and he was just about to start his service. I told him that if he ever hurt her I'd claw his face off."

Most people would've been horrified by the statement. Miranda was simply bemused.

"Ahh, Vakarian, the direct approach. I always did like that about you." Her voice was edged with laughter, the accent musical in his ears.

"Well, I'm no krogan, but I do what I can. Speaking of, now that we're headed to Tuchanka, at least some females will find the scars sexy." His talons unconsciously drifted up the side of his face, running over the roughly-healed plates and leathery skin.

"Well, I don't know if you have to go as far as Tuchanka for that," she replied. It sounded almost flirtatious. There was a faint blush along her cheeks, and if she had been turian, he would've sworn that she was definitely flirting. But this was too hard to tell.

"Any more news on the Collector attacks?" He foraged for safer conversational ground. She shook her head, tapping at her pad.

"No. The Illusive Man hasn't told me or Shepard anything as yet. Hence why we have the time to race around the galaxy sorting out everyone's problems I guess." She shrugged her shoulders, which drew his eyes to those clean, elegant lines.

"Shepard and his compulsive hero complex. He doesn't just want to save the galaxy, he wants to save everybody. All his crew." Garrus indicated the rest of the ship with a wave of a talon. "He was like that back in the old days too."

"Comes from Akuze, maybe? Or Mindoir? Kelly and Cerberus psychs had a grand old time trying to pin the man down. His motivations I mean, how he was shaped by his background."

"Waste of time. I note no one bothered interviewing any of us from the original _Normandy_ squad, for starters."

She met his eyes again, this time the shrug that accompanied the look was clearly embarrassed. "We...no, I dropped the ball. Too busy focussing on the medical and technical challenges we faced, I reckon. You didn't even seem that surprised to see him on Omega."

"I wasn't. Serving with Shepard…well, he does three impossible things before breakfast on a regular basis. When I heard they hadn't found a body- that it was missing…" He shrugged this time. "Of course I knew Cerberus had it, I might have picked up my sniper rifle and come after you."

"So noted," she replied dryly. "Maybe it was a good thing we didn't tell people after all, then."

"Maybe." Mandibles flashed into another blink-and-you'll-miss-it grin. She reciprocated.

"Why are you awake anyway, Garrus? If I know Shepard, he'll definitely want you alongside him when we hit the ground on Tuchanka." She raised one perfect eyebrow as she asked him, and he looked away and shrugged. May as well be honest.

"Couldn't sleep. Really. The whole jumping-through-the-Omega-Relay thing maybe. Taking the fight to the Reapers. Stress. Whatever. If I was on a turian ship…" He trailed off, talons briefly drumming a tattoo against the table. She leaned back in her chair, arms folded under breasts. Once Shepard had got drunk after they'd taken down Saren, and spent some time rhapsodising about breasts. One pair in particular. He hadn't remembered in the wake of the hangover the next morning, but now Garrus found himself wondering if they were really all that Shepard had made them out to be. Maybe he needed to do some investigation of his own. Hands-on, as it were.

"Sorry, no fighting allowed. You could go downstairs and offer to take Grunt for a few rounds of hand-to-hand." Miranda didn't bother to keep a straight face as she made the suggestion, and it was his turn to make a dry reply.

"Yeah, I need to relieve stress. Not get turned into turian paste from which Doc Chakwas has to reconstruct me. Or are you desperate to re-live the Lazarus project?"

"Not that desperate, no. Besides, we'd have to bring you back without the scars…and that just wouldn't look as good." She looked at him with a butter-wouldn't-melt-in-her-mouth expression. Oh yes, definitely flirting. His receptors weren't that decrepit, not yet. Miranda Lawson, Cerberus…Cheerleader (for wont of a better word), flirting with a turian. Garrus wouldn't believe it himself if he wasn't living it. Maybe he could kick it up a notch, see where it went.

"There was a recon scout on one of my ships. We'd been at each other's throats for the whole tour. The night before we went in against a heavily-fortified base of Batarian slavers, we decided to have it out in the sparring ring. I had reach, but she had flexibility." Miranda was watching him with hooded eyes, and they blinked once, like a Palavenese _rithor_. Like a predator eying its prey. Garrus decided he quite liked being looked at like that.

"What happened?"

"We duked it out for seven rounds, before the senior officers stepped in and called it a draw. Didn't want us too damaged before we hit the base. A lot of disappointed bettors amongst the crewmembers." He smirked as he recalled that particular memory, out-of-breath, mandibles flaring, watching her across the sparring mat, doubled over as she tried to catch her breath.

"Did it help?" Miranda asked, trying for reluctant interest, but failing at the reluctant part quite audibly. Her breath had quickened he noted. Her hands were back on the table, and she leaned towards him. Body language was body language, even across alien cultures. In some ways, at least.

"Not as much as the tiebreaker we held in my room later that night. Turns out there's more than one way to work off some stress and ease the tension. I had the reach…and she had the flexibility." Well the bait was out on. Time to see if she would respond. He got a little worried when she was silent at first, regarding him with those beautiful blue eyes, and he thought he imagined any sign of interest from her. Then she spoke.

"Well, you're awake. I'm awake. We both need to blow off some…steam. How about we test your reach against my flexibility." His eyes widened. Even a first year recruit with a Claymore couldn't miss that. She had a look of surprise on her face, as if she couldn't quite believe she had said either. "That was awful. How bad was that line. Listen, don't-"

"Sounds like good idea to me. As long as it isn't some horrible interspecies awkwardness thing." He cut her off before she changed, her mind, talons reaching out to take one hand. It was warm to touch, and as he took it her nostrils flared. Heat pooled in his groin, and he felt himself growing hard, his fringe hardening alongside. If she was turian, she would know exactly how he felt. As it turned out, she didn't need to be.

"Heck, why not. Its not like we have some grand friendship to lose. My room. 10 minutes. Lose the armour. Don't need to be fancy, you don't need to wine and dine me." She rose, then smiled down at him. "Show me some turian superiority tonight, and it might not be a one-shot deal."

"Oh don't worry. I like to savour every last shot before I, uh, pop the heatsink." He groaned as the analogy derailed completely, Miranda unable to hide her smile behind a polite hand. "Guess we're both coming out with awful lines tonight."

"Just…my room. Soon."

The next morning, he saw Shepard in elevator as he went down to ask Tali for some tools to improve the calibration (and to tease her a little more about Kal'Reegar). Shepard was prepping for the shuttle flight down to Tuchanka with Mordin and Grunt, and they made small talk for a minute or two. Just before the doors closed as he got off at engineering, Garrus turned to Shepard and grinned.

"Hey Shepard. Guess what? I agree with you. About breasts I mean. What you said, when you were drunk that time. They are great."

He'd savour that look of incredulity for a long time. Or at least till Shepard came back and made him spill his guts. He whistled as he walked into engineering. He'd slept well last night…eventually.


End file.
